Gabrielle Jones-Art workshops, Balmain

The eminent artist, Charles Blackman described Gabrielle’s work as “…full of shining light, radiant… [she] lets the inner things – her soul – come into her paintings [and] evokes feelings from the viewer”; whilst the artist and critic Jeff Makin wrote in Critic’s Choice, The Melbourne Herald: “Gabrielle Jones does have something different to say about the landscape. Jones’ tone [creates]… a particularly ethereal quality and a landscape for contemplation.”

In awarding Gabrielle first prize in an art show, Artist and Newcastle University Academic David Middlebrook stated, “Here we have an artist who looks at the subtlety as well as the complexity of nature, and gives the viewer a vision into her own personal response to the world… The honesty in the picture is huge… she learns through painting and refines and distils her vision until she has a quiet, strong painting that is about so much more than (its subject)”

I have always been happiest when drawing, painting or making – from my earliest memories of sitting in a corner drawing anything with my Lakeland coloured pencils, to spending hours alone, music playing, in a blissful state in my current studio. My hands have always been feeling, combining, mixing, drawing or painting something – even if in the corners of a schoolbook – since a very early age. It’s my second nature and now, the more I do, the more I need to do it. Life is not happy when I can’t make it to the studio for a few days in a row!